Why I can't take organized religion seriously #1001001SOS

[Nebu]

LDS is really not at all unique in holding racist views. Religion was one of the mainstays of racism throughout history and most Christian sects were following the same line of reasoning as the LDS was. For example, peeking at Wikipedia, we find that in 1968 only 11% of SBC churches would allow black members. The Christian Reformed Church in South Africa was also one of the main defenders of apartheid.

I wasn't trying to suggest that they were unique in this view.  I was more surprised by the blatant language of it.  I happen to be in a region where we have a large number of LDS folks.  Many of my students are LDS and I find them to be diligent and quality people.  What continually surprises me is that so many people embrace religion through upbringing or for acceptance and rarely give it any cause for doubt or question.  Personally, faith is something I'm never very comfortable with. 

[Paelos]

Christian racism goes as far back as Jews vs. Gentiles. That was part of the reason that the Jews hated Jesus, because he preached to the unclean rabble. It would be no different for a white preacher in the 19th century touring the negro countryside to spread the good news.

There is always a part of the church that thinks of some type of person as "unworthy" of God because of some reason or another. I think the closest we'd find today would be homosexuals.

[Abagadro]

It's of course completely a coincidence that the 1978 revelation about blacks in the priesthood came when the IRS was investigating revoking their tax exempt status because of the racial discrimination. Good to have a direct line to god in such circumstances as he is obviously concerned with the finances.

[WayAbvPar]

DUM DE DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM!

[Nebu]

It's of course completely a coincidence that the 1978 revelation about blacks in the priesthood came when the IRS was investigating revoking their tax exempt status because of the racial discrimination. Good to have a direct line to god in such circumstances as he is obviously concerned with the finances.

Damnit, that one cost me a keyboard... unless I can somehow remove the diet coke I spit into it while laughing.

[Sky]

Mormonism is a cult. We have two guys that volunteer here now and again (often a different two guys, lots'o'churn). I overheard them talking today about how their priority is to stop this other guy from leaving the cult, even if they have to stay home and keep him from physically leaving.

Wow. Someone's diety is insecure.

[Polysorbate80]

The cold thing is apocryphal. No restrictions on those.

Probably didn't occur to anyone at the time, refrigeration not being a common thing in the early 19th century :P

[HaemishM]

God don't roll with ice.

[Paelos]

God don't roll with ice.

He's God, he don't need no bling, yo. He created this bitch.

[Triforcer]

It's of course completely a coincidence that the 1978 revelation about blacks in the priesthood came when the IRS was investigating revoking their tax exempt status because of the racial discrimination. Good to have a direct line to god in such circumstances as he is obviously concerned with the finances.

The revelation about polygamy being bad came down right when polygamy had to go as a condition of Utah becoming a state.  I've met Mormons who insist that the change had absolutely nothing to do with that- apparently, it was a coincidence.   

[Abagadro]

Smith's revelation about polygamy in the first place happened after he started shacking up with other women who weren't his wife and then backdated ("oh, he just wrote it down in 1843, he had it much earlier"). Lots of coincidences going around that religion.

[Selby]

Wow. Someone's diety is insecure.

Seriously.  Once you go through the 7 dinners, get invited, make the vow and get confirmed, you AIN'T getting out except in a box (and that's not even enough as they will baptize you as a corpse).  I can't imagine anything more like a cult than that.

[Samwise]

Damnit, that one cost me a keyboard... unless I can somehow remove the diet coke I spit into it while laughing.

Let it dry out and it'll probably be okay.  One of Diet Coke's most wonderful properties is that it doesn't dry sticky.

[Paelos]

Damnit, that one cost me a keyboard... unless I can somehow remove the diet coke I spit into it while laughing.

Let it dry out and it'll probably be okay.  One of Diet Coke's most wonderful properties is that it doesn't dry sticky.

That and the crack they put in it.

[Strazos]

That shit is disgusting. Diet soda puts a terrible taste in my mouth; barely better than vomit.

[Murgos]

I'm absolutely convinced that diet sodas make people fat.

I mean, look around, who do you see drinking diet soda?

Spurious logic aside I do think that the massive intake of artificial sweeteners has some negative effect on the body that probably outweighs the benefit of reduced caloric intake.  I know guys that practically inhale diet soda all day, granted a 1200+ increase in their caloric intake wouldn't be a very good idea if they switched to non-diet drinks but they are NOT healthy looking people.

[Endie]

I tend to drink several cans of diet coke per day, although I gave it up for lent (something which I have not enjoyed much at all).  While I think I'm fine drinking it, I wouldn't like to think what people (women in particular, due to their potentially heightened osteoporosis issues) who do little high-impact exercise but drink a liter a day or more of the stuff are doing to their bone mass with all that phosphoric acid.

Also, I remember turning up in the US once with a bottle of Pepsi Max in my luggage, and my American friends looking at the ingredients and saying "look, this chemical was banned here years ago!".

[Nebu]

Spurious logic aside I do think that the massive intake of artificial sweeteners has some negative effect on the body that probably outweighs the benefit of reduced caloric intake.  I know guys that practically inhale diet soda all day, granted a 1200+ increase in their caloric intake wouldn't be a very good idea if they switched to non-diet drinks but they are NOT healthy looking people.

If you live in America, you'd recognize that most people are not healthy looking.  I especially love going to the doctor for my annual physical and seeing all the fat healthcare givers.  Way to set the bar high!

Yes, I drink diet soda and yes, I'm likely to grow a third arm because of it.  Water is the only thing people should be drinking... we all have our vices.

[Ironwood]

Remember, even too much water can kill you.

Especially in the lungs.

[Nebu]

Remember, even too much water can kill you.

Especially in the lungs.

Hyponatremia and the Wii.  We had that thread already.

[Polysorbate80]

If you live in America, you'd recognize that most people are not healthy looking.  I especially love going to the doctor for my annual physical and seeing all the fat healthcare givers.  Way to set the bar high!

So far as I've seen, they also have an amazingly high proportion of smokers.

[Sky]

"Healthy-looking" is pretty broadly defined. I think most people look healthy, unless they are visibly wounded or ill.

Just reading some stuff about the bullshit surrounding the 'obesity epidemic', and I'm in a constant struggle to reject society's conditioning (fat people are bad!). My favorite part is where he makes a connection to the anti-smoking campaigns for the obesity thing. It's the most sensible thing I've heard on the subject, certainly makes more sense than any diet fad.

I've been drinking Diet Coke since I was a skinny kid when it first came out. The biggest I've ever been was Beer Gut. I eat and drink whatever the hell I want, whenever I want. It's genetics and the lack of bingeing (due to depriving my cravings) that keeps me from becoming overweight (and I don't mean in a bullshit BMI way).

You know why so many people are overweight? The $50 billion weight loss industry imo.

[Selby]

(and I don't mean in a bullshit BMI way).

What the hell is with the BMI system anyway?  At my height (6'5"), I have to be something like 165lbs to be in the "good" weight range and even now that I'm 195lbs it says I'm obese.  Sure, at 300lbs I was fat and could concede it, but now?  I'm convinced that the whole system was made up just to get people to feel bad about themselves so that they will spend money on something...  Personally, I still eat whatever the hell I want, I just eat in moderation and actually exercise now (gives me an excuse to play video games for 90 minutes a day).  No special Dial-A-Meal plans and special food that changes based on the phase of the moon.

I really can't stand diet anything.  Although diet Dr. Pepper is something I will tolerate when nothing else is around.  I don't rag on anyone for drinking them though - the sheer amount of millitant "DIET ASPARTAME BAD" people I've run into is shocking.

[Paelos]

The BMI system is mostly horseshit. I'm supposed to be 160 just to be in normal range for 5'10". I haven't weighed 160 since before I started training for sports in 8th grade. The BMI is based completely on a non-athletic body type, which seems to be "anti-health" to begin with.

[Strazos]

Yeah, the BMI is mostly BS. For instance, at my height, my USAF will allow me to weigh up to about 175. I weigh 144 right now, and while I could stand to lose at least 5 lbs, I couldn't get my weight up to 175 if I tried.

I eat what I want, when I want. My exercise is beyond minimal. I'm somehow still within the "normal" range on the BMI chart. I'd have to drop well more than 15 lbs to be "underweight," which I'm not sure I could do either.

...Gogo high metabolism?

[Ironwood]

Yeah, but it slows down.

I'm fast approaching 33 and the slowing evidence is, er, growing.  I used to be rake thin.  Now I'm 'healthy'.  In six months I'll be my dad.

:(

[Endie]

Yep, 33 or 34 was when I started having to train during the off-season in order to make each August's pre-season training less vomit-strewn, and to avoid going into it carrying 5 or 6 extra pounds.  Until then, it was easy.  Now... well, rather less so.   And, even during the season, I now have to keep more of an eye on what I eat.

It is also horribly noticeable in the number of days it takes for the muscular pain to go: previously Sunday was the sore day.  Now it lasts 'til Monday.

[Tebonas]

Ah, I'm relieved. I thought its only me.  :-D

[Jeff Kelly]

Ah, I'm relieved. I thought its only me.  :-D

No it's part of getting older. At the start of university I was at 75 kg. I'm now at 95 although I do not eat more than 5 years ago. Metabolism slows down as you get older and you don't burn as much calories because you sit around much more in your Office.

[Merusk]

The BMI system is mostly horseshit. I'm supposed to be 160 just to be in normal range for 5'10". I haven't weighed 160 since before I started training for sports in 8th grade. The BMI is based completely on a non-athletic body type, which seems to be "anti-health" to begin with.

Which matches, oh, 80+% of the US population.  Most folks sit on their ass for at least 10 hours a day even IF they work out.  It's much more likely to be 15+ hours of pure sedentary behavior.  The BMI seems more realistically aimed at the current American lifestyle, and how to keep at a healthy weight for it.

Just reading some stuff about the bullshit surrounding the 'obesity epidemic', and I'm in a constant struggle to reject society's conditioning (fat people are bad!). My favorite part is where he makes a connection to the anti-smoking campaigns for the obesity thing. It's the most sensible thing I've heard on the subject, certainly makes more sense than any diet fad.

Damn.. I forget what city you live in, Sky.  You really notice it when you live in the midwest near or in one of the 'fattest cities.'  I should go around a few malls here in Cinci and get some photos for you.  Hell, I could even just go to work, as the co-worker who started the same time as I both have commented on the very round state of the majority of the staff.   I'm not exaggerating when I say there are 7 women in my dep't of 25 whose weight I'd put down at 195 or better.  The guys are a lot better off, but that's because the 4 who were large have quit or been fired in recent months.  The rest of us are teetering on the "better watch it" brink - including myself.    I'd say we've got 4 people at a 'healthy' weight.

Then you go out and see all the kids.  "Normal" kids in the mall around here would have been called "the fat kid" when I was in school.  My daughter's considered skinny, at a size I would have called normal.   Yes, we're definitely getting fatter as a nation.

[Endie]

I just looked around, and there are 27 people in my office right now: I'd say 4 are overweight to some degree, and two of those are carrying real bulk: not the comedy round stomach look but easily 30 pounds extra.  As a technology department, we're easily the worst in the building.  And at the beginning of the week I was wakling into work with a friend discussing a news item on obesity we'd seen which said that one in three of us in Scotland was clinically obese.  We saw about one in 15 or so.

I think it's really quite tightly focussed, geographically and economicaly, here at least.  If I go to Ayrshire, or Lanarkshire, or one of the sink estates like Blochairn, Muirhouse, Castlemilk or Easterhouse then I see a lot of very overweight people, especially above the age of 40 or so.  But most of the middle-classed office-dwellers I see on my way through central Edinburgh are pretty healthy-looking.  The sedentary lifestyle is to some extent balanced out by education, the money to eat a bit better, and the time and money to play hard in our spare time: we get free gym membership, we have half a dozen sports teams in an office with 160 people etc...

The impression news items from the States give is that it's far less split on class/wealth lines, but I honestly don't see a huge amount of obesity when I go to America, which I do quite a bit.  Am I just missing the real fat states?

[Selby]

Am I just missing the real fat states?

Go to a mall in Houston, Texas.  The sheer amount of truly fat people astounded me the last time I was there.

[Murgos]

The impression news items from the States give is that it's far less split on class/wealth lines, but I honestly don't see a huge amount of obesity when I go to America, which I do quite a bit.  Am I just missing the real fat states?

6' and 180 lbs is 30lbs overweight according to BMI.  I think everyone can see how stupid that number is for anyone that's even a little active but we all know that the news is going to look at a set of numbers and interpret them in the absolute most FUD invoking, ad selling method they can.  So the result is that the more active and healthy people are the worse the obesity epidemic gets and the more ad revenue CNN makes.

But if you want to see a high proportion of fatties, Walmart is certainly a good bet.  It must be the 10 lb economy priced bags of snickers.

[Endie]

But if you want to see a high proportion of fatties, Walmart is certainly a good bet.  It must be the 10 lb economy priced bags of snickers.

I suppose that, since I only go to the US for a week or two at a time, I'm missing a lot of places like that.  I've always meant to go to a Walmart: ammo *and* bread is surreal to a tame Euro.

Go to a mall in Houston, Texas.  The sheer amount of truly fat people astounded me the last time I was there.

Again, i went to Houston once, but I didn't go to any malls.  Given that the heat and humidity almost killed me, i can see why someone carrying a spare gut might have been sticking to the aircon.

In any case, I take back my blanket statement.  I once went to a steakhouse in Duluth, and couldn't believe the size of my fellow diners, until I saw the dish that offered both chicken and prawns as accompaniments to a steak big enough to bend light.

[Riggswolfe]

I was maybe 120 lbs when I graduated high school and I hated how thin I was. I looked like a strong breeze could knock me down. Now I'm 200 lbs and eat less than I did back then, alot less.

So yeah, metabolism slows down as you age. I've gotten to a point where I am seriously considering going to a health food store like General Nutrition and seeing if they have some kind of natural metabolism enhancer that isn't caffeine. (As I age I get more sensitive to caffeine, more than one a day and I'm up til 1am and have to get up at 6am the next day. That doesn't work for me like it did when I was 20.)

That and I'm breaking down and getting a treadmill. I feel like a damned yuppie or something.